Review of Mob Psycho 100 II
I feel like I'm several months late on this, but why not. Mob Psycho 100's second season has received universal praise within the anime community. It's fair to see why, as the show features a unique setting with tons of potential. Being a fan of One Punch Man, I watched the first season of Mob Psycho, and while it started off kinda slow, I felt like it left a good taste in my mouth. Here Mob Psycho season 2 had arguably stronger moments than the first season, but the end result was kinda mixed. Let's take a more depth look to see why. Story - 6/10 Sliceof life shows have been rather spotty for me. I'm totally fine when a show doesn't want to have continuous and would rather divide the story into arcs or separate episodes. Plenty of my favorites follow this format! However, the consistency in Mob's arcs is certainly questionable.
The first few episodes start off rather well. I mentioned that the last season left a good impression on me with the ending, and the second season seems to continue on that streak. But..then we get to Mogami. While there are some strong points to be here, I'll focus on the negatives since I think that they really ruined what could be a rather emotional arc. First off, the writing is.....crap? To be more specific, it feels something that a child would think up of. Ok not specific enough...alright, it's because of THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. This arc revolves around a damn ghost telling Mob he has nooo friends to make him sad. Then he realizes that he does have friends, and boom, he wins. This is literally something out of a children's cartoon or another generic shonen.
Past this we get an arc that focuses on Reigen, which is actually quite good! Here is where the peaks of this season come in. It hits those high notes much higher than anything in the previous season. It's unfortunate that it took this long for certain plot points to become more developed, but I won't spoil otherwise I'll ruin the best arc of the season!
Now the last arc sucks, it's basically just MHA. You get plenty of action from villains whose motives are really underdeveloped. My attention was wandering around the room as opposed to watching the show by this point. This ending left a really bad impression on me and ruined what looked like a truly great 8/10 series after the previous arc. Both of these weak arcs are honestly pretty dark for a series like Mob Psycho and result in a jarring shift in tone. I think it left a poor taste for the series as a whole
Characters - 7/10
They're fine. I never found the characters to be that funny nor compelling in Mob Psycho. Each of them are about as deep as a puddle and are scrambling for any jokes. It just comes off as awkward. I've already mentioned the wonderful Reigen arc, but again, a lot of this stuff comes off as moments, and not genuine characterization. OPM didn't have any "deep" characters, but Mob fans act like this is the deepest shit. Everyone besides Mob and Reigen are just a blur. I can't remember anyone!
Art - 7/10
In terms of animation, Mob Psycho II is exceptional. It can be too flashy and hard to follow at times, but most of the action scene look sick! Why I gave this section a 7 though? The art style is ugly. Just a matter of taste. Not a fan of this in the first season, and I still don't care now
Sound - 7/10
Music is pretty good, especially the openings and endings. The voice acting leaves much to be desired though. Most of it is dull. The characters sound like they're mumbling half the time which detracts from my attention
Enjoyment - 7/10
I was really into this series but the bad parts are kinda bad. A couple other shows from this season were consistently enjoyable while the ending here really left much to be desired. Mob Psycho II is still fairly good, I just can't put it among the greats this year
Overall - 7/10
Not a bad series overall, just not something for me. At one point this had over a 9.00 on MAL! Seriously? Mob Psycho II still follows plenty of shonen tropes and lacks the nuance in its writing to separate itself from the flock. But hey, at least this beats out OPM2!